From 28 to 82 - part 3

Friday at the Folkschool can be a crunch day. The idea is to finish the piece, clean up the studio and head over to a closing ceremony where our pieces are displayed, OR in the case of performing arts, performed OR in the case of cooking classes, served. Above is the table with all of our weaving pieces. Our instructor was pleased particularly with each of the different styles from each person. Wedge weave is essentially a simple technique, but like plain weave there are so many possibilities. For example, most of us worked in yarn, but one student chose thread. She blended 4 pieces of thread and simply changed the blends throughout the piece. It was quite exquisite. My job may be changing just enough over the next year to require some travel and I'm thinking her home built loom and thread may be a way to keep me weaving no matter where I am. Finally, here is my completed piece. I am pleased with it and particularly enjoyed the free form process. I'm looking forward to getting into the companion piece on the tapestry loom to see where it goes.

Saturday is the sad day of packing up and leaving school. It was nice to have a week of focusing on just one thing. I forced myself to linger by packing after breakfast rather than before. I even carried smaller loads to the car, just to stay slow. Then I headed over to the craft shop and picked up another tapestry weaving book, a pair of earrings, and a piece of pewter from the scratch and dent sale. I figured with my husband as a pewtersmith he could fix the piece.

The weather was beautiful by that point and the school was practically empty. I took my harp out to an arbor not far from the cooking studio. There is a sleeping herb garden behind the arbor to support the studio. I played there for about an hour and found for half of it I actually had an audience! There was robin spending time in one of the sleeping shrubs who listened and then would sing between pieces. At one point during a piece, he sang very loudly jumping towards me and then flew off. I packed up soon afterward, but two robins came by and just stared. It's likely my imagination it was the same one, but what do you think happened? In any case, it was a great ending to a great week.

From 28 to 82 - part 2

I tend to get up early at home and was one of the first up at school - even though I was sleeping in 1.5 hours! I was rewarded with a beautiful sunrise. These views are from the common area of the Hubbell House at the Folkschool.

Weaving also changed everyday throughout the week. As was shown yesterday, I started with a solid color. I realized when I looked at the instructors work what I loved best was the ability to see the wedge weave. What I mean is that she had dyed her own yarns and the varigation of the yarn allowed me to see the yarn was woven on an angle clearly from a few feet away. Learning that lesson, I started blending my colors to attempt the same effect. I also chose a contrast from the first block of colors and a sharp change was born. I struggled with those first few wedges wondering if this is what I really wanted. There was a lot trying something with the next wedge, but then tearing out again. I also had decided that the wedges would not be the same thickness so there would not be symmetry in the piece. One because I like assymetry, but also I felt it would hide my mistakes better! So Tuesday I didn't advance very far, but learned a great deal! I was also brave enough to put in a bit of the tangerine for a little pop of color.

Wednesday I felt a better rhythm, but I also stuck with just working on the floor loom. I had grand plans of moving between the floor loom and the tapestry loom I brought thinking that I'd be in the same mind set, etc. I then decided that I would be better served to concentrate on the floor loom since I cannot take it home with me. I again changed shades with the next block of colors, but I kept one constant dark green solid zig zag. It sometimes "falls off" the piece to the right. I thought it would be interesting for it to "reappear" on the other piece. So I let it run where it may. I'm really enjoying having no plan and just deciding one wedge at a time.

Thursday was the big decision day. I had woven 9 inches the past three days. I decided that I wanted this piece to be at least 4 inches less or more than 16". That ensured the companion piece on the tapestry loom would not be square (again my hope to hide mistakes). I had woven 3 inches on Wednesday night, so I thought it was possible to weave 3 inches by lunch time. If it worked then I would shoot for 3 inches after lunch and 3 Thursday night. That would leave me only 2 inches for Friday to get to 20" long. That seemed reasonable and fortunately it was. I did complete all 9 inches on Thursday and fell into bed late that night!

From 28 to 82 – part 1

When I arrived at the Folkschool Sunday it was 28 F and when I arrived home Saturday it was 82 F! I asked my husband when did Spring happen this week? I made it through without a snow sighting, but heard many stories about other’s traveling through. It seems it snowed everywhere around but not at the Folkschool. My husband actually made a snowman as large as he is. I can’t remember when we had enough snow to play in. Here’s his snowman – and here’s the view from my room!

It was a wonderful week as always at the Folkschool. Sunday at school, we began with introductions and learning the basic wedge weave technique on a piece of cardboard with acrylic yarns. Then we talked a bit about how we’d start the next day. There were only 5 of us in the class, so the instructor offered to help me warp the floor loom if I’d like. I jumped at that. I decided to only make a 4” wide piece on the floor loom that would complement the 16” wide piece on my tapestry loom. The Folkschool has a number of looms and have named each one to differentiate - and so much more creative than a number! Mine was "Norman" - He was the only "male" Macomber in the room! Being an engineer I thought I could handle it! Norman taught me all sorts of new vocabulary words - like rattle, leases, heddles, harnesses, reeds... I don't know that I could warp a loom on my own, but I do think I could at least ask intelligent questions the next time.

My walk back from lunch was accompanied by the rapping of Woody the Woodpecker. The birds were quite vocal with the end of the rain and didn't seem hindered by the cold in the least. I was glad for the warmth of my down vest - I think I understand why they can stay out in it.
We warped the loom from back to front and tied off to the front rod. From there we used sticks to space the warp back out evenly rather than waste yarn. The main reason was not just using something besides waste yarn, but to avoid starting out with a header whose corners frown or smile. The stick always gives a straight hard surface to pack against. I thought it was clever. From there we put in twining and were ready to weave. I was able to put in a wedge and begin the second one the first day on the 4" piece on the floor loom. I was pleased to see that the wedge was actually starting to make the selvedge undulate or scallop! More later....

Heading to the Folkschool!

Saturday was spent getting ready to head to Folkschool. I wandered around the house sometimes aimlessly looking for things like alarm clocks and flashlights. We're getting some badly needed rain and the temperature is supposed to drop Sunday, so I put out more seed - much to the enjoyment of Rocky, the squirrel!

One hitch I've had is that I play handbells with an auditioned group and we have a concert scheduled for Sunday afternoon 3 hours away in the opposite direction from te Folkschool. Classes normally start Sunday evening, but I've worked it out to be there first thing Monday morning - which means leaving at 6 am from here. Not excited about that, but I really want to do this class. Now with the temperatures dropping, the weather forecast is for snow (which I know to some is no big deal - but before and after snow could come ice.) The likelihood of snow here is minimal. It's even laughable where the concert is. BUT the Folkschool likely will get some today and I am concerned I won't be able to get there tomorrow morning with the overnight temps of 12F! So when I got the call this morning that the concert was postponed, I jumped for joy! I am now frantically trying to get myself out of the house to get there before any weather starts - even if I am sitting at the Folkschool hours before registration begins.

That means putting in the loom - that now has it's foundation, twining and header. And to take along my new beaters that my husband made for me. I had heard that Kathe Todd-Hooker has fixed washers onto fork to increase the weight of her beater. I wasn't sure that washers would be enough weight, so we looked at nuts and bolts. He drilled a hole through the face of the fork and fed the bolt through it to fasten to 2 hex nuts. I've got 4 beaters then - plain, 3/8" bolt, 7/16" bolt, and 1/2" bolt. I am guessing these would then range from 1 to 3 oz. in weight. The next question is how they will hold up. I'll put them through the ringer this week and we'll see!

I'm sad to say that I will not have a computer with me - I've decided to take my harp instead. So look for a BIG blog entry when I get back! Till then enjoy!

Celebrating Something New

Cardinals tend to stay with us through the winters and these two are a pair of at least 7 that live in our neighborhood. Their red is a welcome splash of color among all the bare branches of the trees. What's new is with the warmer weather the Carolina Wrens are starting to show up also. I've also started recently putting out seed - so that may be why the wrens have started to come by. ;-)

Last Friday, we were invited by my company to a dinner to celebrate the accomplishments of those who had filed for patents and those who had received patents in 2008. I was granted my first US patent last year and I was glad to be a part of this. It's the only celebration the company will be holding this year with the US recession. They felt this one was important and I agree.

Lastly, I have been able to get the leashes onto the new "big sis" loom. The wedge weave class starts Sunday, so we're getting close to the wire. I want to recheck the needs list tonight to make sure there's nothing I've forgotten! I'd love to get more done, but somehow I just can't quit the job. It seems I'm addicted to eating - I can't live without it! It makes me look forward all the more to a whole week dedicated to just weaving. Ahhh, what a luxury!

Big Sis

I finally registered for my class next month at John C Campbell Folkschool in wedge weaving. I received the needs list this week and it included 2-3 pounds of weft. I promptly put my order for a number of shades of green, but just one tangerine skein for a line that pops occasionally. I had seen another weaving with blues and a hint of yellow that got me thinking on those lines. (Thanks, K) I'm excited about the combination. I have no plans and hope it's just a generally random thing, but we'll see what the instructor has in store for us!

The second "homework" assignment I had was building a larger loom. This is not a beginner's class and it required knowing how to warp a floor loom. I've never done that (yet!), but talked with the instructor about using a tapestry loom. She was game. So this weekend for Valentine's Day my husband and I built another loom that's 28" x 33". It's amazing how big it is once we brought it in. I'm calling it the "big sis" to the other loom!

It's a basically one of Archie Brennan's student pipe looms, but I added the leashing unit to the smaller pipe loom. I did make one change. I knew I would need to warp this for a continuous warp and wasn't sure that I liked the loom sitting on the warp and eventually the weaving, so I used tees (instead of elbows) and 2" of pipe at the bottom to create feet for the loom. It actually made warping the loom easier because the spool could pass under the bottom pipe without lifting the loom. I've warped it for 16" wide and thinking there is about 40-44 inches available in length. Now I've still got to put on the leashes, foundation and header, but I'm relieved this much is finished!

Playing in Textures

I've been looking at yarn colors to put into the tapestry woven aprons for the back porch and found there were too many to choose from. It then occured to me it may be better to only have one color - which meant some means of creating a texture to show the grout lines of the tile pattern. So I started playing and produced the following. At first I was working hard to produce a single line. I didn't find anything prominent enough until I tried a single line soumak from Kirsten Glasbrook's Tapestry Weaving book. That was great for horzontal, but was a fight in the vertical direction. I tried Steve Bremner's wirework, except I tried nylon fishing line. I still struggled with the vertical direction being as prominent as the horizontal.

Then it struck me to try a different texture for each block and elminate the grout lines. I found in Kathe Todd-Hooker's Tapestry 101 a number of variations on soumak. I tried those and think I've found 4 textures that will work. Enough so that I picked out one yarn color and ordered them from Norsk Fjord Fiber. (Can I put in anymore plugs???) With all the colors of the slate, I decided on a nice neutral gray! You'd be amazed how much of it ends up in my house! It only took a day and the yarn is here!

Before I plunge into those, I think I will do one more sampler with those 4 textures in part of the slate patterns just to make sure I put them together well. Any suggestions on generating texture are most welcome!